the future of broadband Thread

[RVR II]

Aren't they gunning for the people that can't get cable? I would assume this is for rural areas that can't get lines to their houses.

If that's the case, my parents need that as their DSL is just gawd-awful slow but there's no way they would pay exorbitant costs through Verizon..

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Aren't they gunning for the people that can't get cable? I would assume this is for rural areas that can't get lines to their houses.

If that's the case, my parents need that as their DSL is just gawd-awful slow but there's no way they would pay exorbitant costs through Verizon..

The different plans are what's really crazy, you'd be better off just getting the cheapest one and paying the overage just for the months you go over.  Since you aren't going to be able to do much more than email and surfing the web on any of the plans.  Going from a 10GB cap to a 30GB cap really doesn't let you do a lot more.

I can see it being a good option if you've got a DSL line that drops out a lot, so you can have a stable connection.  But I feel bad for people that have stable 1mbps DSL and switch to this because they hype the speed, then get their first bill and go bankrupt... 

[Henry88]

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., March 19, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- As access to skilled workers becomes increasingly vital to the U.S. economy, AT&T* is launching a quarter-billion-dollar campaign to help more students graduate from high school ready for careers and college, and to ensure the country is better prepared to meet global competition.

According to a March 19, 2012 report by Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center, America's Promise Alliance and the Alliance for Excellent Education, Alabama has seen a .7 percentage increase in 2009 graduation rates, compared with data from 2002.

AT&T Aspire, already among the most significant U.S. corporate educational initiatives with more than $100 million invested since 2008, will tackle high school success and college/career readiness for students at risk of dropping out of high school through a much larger, "socially innovative" approach. Social innovation goes beyond traditional philanthropy - which typically involves only charitable giving - to also engage people and technology to bring different approaches, new solutions and added resources to challenging social problems. The Aspire effort already has impacted more than one million U.S. high school students, helping them prepare for success in the workplace and college.

The greatly expanded effort centers on a new, $250 million financial commitment planned over 5 years. AT&T Aspire will build on that commitment by using technology to connect with students in new and more effective ways, such as with interactive gamification, Web-based content and social media. The company will also tap the innovation engine of the AT&T Foundry to look for fresh or atypical approaches to educational obstacles. Finally, AT&T Aspire will capitalize on the power of personal connections in the form of mentoring, internships and other voluntary efforts that involve many of AT&T's approximately 260,000 employees.

Between now and April 18, 2012, AT&T is also encouraging Alabama organizations to submit applications to pre-qualify for funding through the Local High School Impact Initiative Requests for Proposals (RFPs). AT&T is most interested in funding local programs that have strong, evidence-based practices grounded in the What Works Clearinghouse Dropout Prevention: A Practice Guide and data-driven outcomes demonstrated to improve high school graduation rates. More information on the RFP process is available at www.att.com/education-news (click on the "Aspire Local Impact RFP" option).

"AT&T Aspire works toward an America where every student graduates high school equipped with the knowledge and skills to strengthen the nation's workforce," AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said while announcing the extended commitment during a keynote address at the second annual Building a Grad Nation Summit. The Washington, D.C., event convened by America's Promise Alliance ( http://www.americaspromise.org/ ), Civic Enterprises ( http://www.civicenterprises.net/home.html ), The Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University ( www.every1graduates.org/ ), and the Alliance for Excellent Education ( http://www.all4ed.org/ ) brings together nearly 1,200 U.S. leaders to discuss progress and challenges in ending the high school dropout crisis.

Lacking a high school degree is a serious issue in the United States, where one in four students - more than 1 million each year - drops out, according to a March 19, 2012, report by Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center, America's Promise Alliance and the Alliance for Excellent Education. AT&T is the lead sponsor of this report. Education experts believe that the lack of a high school degree significantly worsens job prospects in a rapidly changing, increasingly sophisticated job market.

And, if dropouts find jobs, they earn less. On average, a high school dropout earns 25 percent less during the course of his or her lifetime compared with a high school graduate and 57 percent less than a college graduate with a bachelor's degree.[1]

The situation poses a serious risk to American competitiveness as corporations struggle to find talent, especially in the math and sciences fields. The dropout rate, along with inadequate training and education, is keeping many high-paying Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) jobs from being filled. And the situation is expected to worsen as STEM jobs grow a projected 17 percent by 2018. Workers in these positions typically earn 26 percent more than those in non-STEM positions.[2]

Although the problem is serious, there are signs of progress according to the report issued today:

The high school graduation rate increased by 3.5 percentage points nationally from 2001 to 2009.

In 2001, the rate was 72.0 percent; by 2009, it had risen to 75.5 percent. From 2002 to 2009, six states experienced large gains in their graduation rates; 14 states made moderate gains; and four states made modest gains (note:2002 was the first year that state data became available.)

And the number of "dropout factory" high schools (a high school where 12th-grade enrollment is 60 percent or less than the 9th-grade enrollment three years previously) dropped from 2,007 to 1,550 from 2002 to 2010 - a 23 percent decrease.

The new and expanded AT&T commitment builds on the work AT&T Aspire has completed in the last four years. AT&T and the AT&T Foundation have invested more than $100 million in Aspire since 2008 - and more than $923 million since 1984 in education.

AT&T Aspire will build on that success by focusing on:

Technology

Collaborating with innovators, educators and other companies at the AT&T Foundry ( www.att.com/foundry ) to blaze new ground in developing solutions to improve education. For example, the company will sponsor challenges or contests for mobile application developers to create cutting-edge solutions to complex problems in our educational system. A June "hackathon" in Palo Alto, Calif., is the first scheduled education/technology development event.

Expanding strategic alliances with organizations that specialize in developing and marketing new interactive learning tools which better engage today's students.

Incorporating gamification, the Internet, video and social media into educational programs.

Enabling students in underserved communities to explore careers before graduation through internships in areas related to 21st-century skills.

Collaborating on a revolutionary nationwide initiative with GameDesk ( http://www.gamedesk.org/ ), pioneers in game-based and digital learning, aimed at transforming traditional instruction and equalizing education for all students.

People

Because AT&T employees have asked for more opportunities to engage with students and contribute to their success, AT&T will launch the Aspire Mentoring Academy later this year. The academy will enable employees to help students at risk of dropping out of school succeed in the classroom and in life.

Building on the success of AT&T's first Job Shadow initiative ( http://www.att.com/gen/corporate-citizenship?pid=11547 ) with Junior Achievement ( http://www.ja.org/ ), the next evolution for Job Shadow will create a program in which employee-student teams learn work/life skills, explore real business problems and form lasting relationships. The initial Job Shadow initiative already has involved 100,000 U.S. students, including 3,362 in Alabama

AT&T employees will provide skills-based mentoring, which pairs them with students based on shared interests to encourage and support career path development.

Inspiring more AT&T customers, companies and stakeholders to step up to the challenge of addressing the education crisis.

Communities

Deepening the financial commitment to local education-focused groups that deliver results.

Especially groups that embrace social innovation, focus on 21st-century skills, or focus on STEM disciplines for students in underserved communities.

Making local contributions to community organizations that specialize in helping students and improving the quality of education.

"It will take all of us working together and supporting the hard work of the education community to continue to improve graduation rates and preparedness for careers and college," Fred McCallum President AT&T Alabama said. "American business has an enormous stake in the success of our students. It's time to commit more innovation and resources to the task."

Cautionary Language Concerning Forward-Looking StatementsInformation set forth in this news release contains financial estimates and other forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. A discussion of factors that may affect future results is contained in AT&T's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. AT&T disclaims any obligation to update or revise statements contained in this news release based on new information or otherwise.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

About AT&TAT&T Inc. T +0.21% is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates - AT&T operating companies - are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation's fastest mobile broadband network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile broadband and emerging 4G capabilities, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse® and AT&T |DIRECTV brands. The company's suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world. In domestic markets, AT&T Advertising Solutions and AT&T Interactive are known for their leadership in local search and advertising.

Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com . This AT&T news release and other announcements are available at http://www.att.com/newsroom and as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss . Or follow our news on Twitter at @ATT.

About Philanthropy at AT&TAT&T Inc. T +0.21% is committed to advancing education, strengthening communities and improving lives. Through its philanthropic initiatives and working with other organizations, AT&T has a long history of supporting projects that create learning opportunities; promote academic and economic achievement; and address community needs. In 2011, more than $115 million was contributed through corporate-, employee- and AT&T Foundation-giving programs.

[1] "The College Payoff," Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce [August 2011]

[2] "STEM: Good Jobs Now and for the Future," U.S. Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration [July 2011]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/att-announces-additional-aspire-grants-to-help-improve-alabamas-dropout-rate-2012-03-19

a tad older

[Henry88]

U.S. schools will need broadband speeds of 100 Mbps per 1,000 students and staff members by the 2014-15 school year in order to meet a growing demand for Web-based instruction and a skyrocketing number of student-owned Web devices, according to a report by a trade group representing state education agencies.

The report, The Broadband Imperative, recommends schools increase their broadband speeds to 1 Gbps per 1,000 students and staff by 2017-18. Internal WANs connecting schools within districts should be 1 Gbps by 2014-15 and 10 Gbps by 2017-18, said the report, released Monday by the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA).

Schools are moving away from viewing Internet instruction as an add-on to traditional teaching, said Christine Fox, director of educational leadership and research at SETDA. Many schools are beginning to embrace online textbooks, video conferencing and online collaboration tools, she said during a press conference in Washington.

Broadband access has to be "ubiquitous and the broadband robust," said Fox, co-author of the new report. Broadband has become a "necessary utility" instead of an add-on, she added.

Schools must prepare for a large number of concurrent broadband users as more classrooms work Internet-based learning into their daily activities, Fox said. "Students shouldn't go to school and wonder if they turn on the light, is it going to dim the light in another room?" she said. "They also shouldn't wonder, if they go to download a video, is it going to slow the access to the classroom across the hall?"

For high-definition video streaming, each student needs 4 Mbps of download speed, the report said. For group videoconferencing on Skype, students need speeds of double that, the report said.

Students at Lawrence Township Public Schools in New Jersey now use videoconferencing to learn French from Canadian students, said Andrew Zuckerman, director of instructional services for the district. Students rely on the Internet for research and collaboration throughout the day, he said.

"We can no longer use 20th-century skills to teach 21st-century learners," Zuckerman added.

Within the next 13 months, the state of Maine will have more Web-enabled devices available for students than it has students, according to Jeff Mao, learning technology policy director at the Maine Department of Education. Maine began providing laptops to seventh-graders in 2002, he said, and schools often purchase the used Apple laptops after their leases expire.

In some Maine schools, there are now 1,400 concurrent broadband users, Mao said. "Fourteen hundred concurrent users are not going to live on a 10-megabit pipe, they're not going to live on a 50 -- they need a much more robust Internet connection," he said.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227379/Education_group_Schools_need_100_Mbps_per_1_000_broadband_users

[Henry88]

An Ohio startup company has raised $200 million to fund gigabit-per-second broadband projects in six university communities across the U.S., the company announced Wednesday.

Gigabit Squared will work with the University Community Next Generation Innovation Project (Gig.U), a coalition of 30 universities focused on improved broadband, to select six communities in which to build the ultra-fast broadband networks, they said. The two organizations will select winning communities between November and the first quarter of 2013, Mark Ansboury, president of Gigabit Squared, said during a press conference.

The new project comes at an important time, when many commercial broadband providers have stopped deploying next-generation networks, said Blair Levin, executive director of Gig.U and lead author of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's 2010 national broadband plan.

The strong backing for Gigabit Squared proves that, "yes, America needs an upgrade, and that, yes, there are investors and innovators willing to step up to get it done," Levin said.

High-speed broadband requires a new business model, Ansboury said. "It's time for a departure from the strategies of the past, strategies that merely looked a fulfilling current demand," he said.

The new Gigabit Neighborhood Gateway Program will focus on using broadband to drive innovations in education, health care, public safety and other sectors, Ansboury said. Many of the innovations that will come from the ultra-fast networks will be ideas that founders of the program can't anticipate, he said.

The program will create demonstration projects in Gig.U communities to serve as models for other regional broadband networks, Ansboury said. The new networks will use an open architecture.

The new program has partnerships with several companies, including Corning, G4S, Juniper Networks, Alcatel Lucent, Ericson and Level 3, Ansboury said. Funding comes from private sources.

The project will focus on creating a self-funding service that doesn't depend on government funding or subsidies, Levin said. "We're very excited about the notion that the private sector is stepping up to this, because it can build that sustainable model," he said.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227409/Groups_launch_gigabit_per_second_broadband_project?taxonomyId=80

[Smith Dr John Smith]

An Ohio startup company has raised $200 million to fund gigabit-per-second broadband projects in six university communities across the U.S., the company announced Wednesday.

Gigabit Squared will work with the University Community Next Generation Innovation Project (Gig.U), a coalition of 30 universities focused on improved broadband, to select six communities in which to build the ultra-fast broadband networks, they said. The two organizations will select winning communities between November and the first quarter of 2013, Mark Ansboury, president of Gigabit Squared, said during a press conference.

The new project comes at an important time, when many commercial broadband providers have stopped deploying next-generation networks, said Blair Levin, executive director of Gig.U and lead author of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's 2010 national broadband plan.

The strong backing for Gigabit Squared proves that, "yes, America needs an upgrade, and that, yes, there are investors and innovators willing to step up to get it done," Levin said.

High-speed broadband requires a new business model, Ansboury said. "It's time for a departure from the strategies of the past, strategies that merely looked a fulfilling current demand," he said.

The new Gigabit Neighborhood Gateway Program will focus on using broadband to drive innovations in education, health care, public safety and other sectors, Ansboury said. Many of the innovations that will come from the ultra-fast networks will be ideas that founders of the program can't anticipate, he said.

The program will create demonstration projects in Gig.U communities to serve as models for other regional broadband networks, Ansboury said. The new networks will use an open architecture.

The new program has partnerships with several companies, including Corning, G4S, Juniper Networks, Alcatel Lucent, Ericson and Level 3, Ansboury said. Funding comes from private sources.

The project will focus on creating a self-funding service that doesn't depend on government funding or subsidies, Levin said. "We're very excited about the notion that the private sector is stepping up to this, because it can build that sustainable model," he said.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227409/Groups_launch_gigabit_per_second_broadband_project?taxonomyId=80

And if it turns out anything like current highspeed the highest speeds you will not be able to get the highest speeds in the US despite it being developed here.

[Henry88]

Verizon Communications is putting the pedal to the metal on its FiOS service with a new 300Mbps option next month, offering a majority of its customers a wild Internet ride, though it hasn't said how much that ride will cost.

The company said Wednesday it will refresh its portfolio of services next month, introducing four new speed tiers. The most eye-catching will be the top plan, with 300Mbps (bits per second) downstream and 65Mbps upstream. With that grade of service, subscribers will be able to download a two-hour high-definition movie in 2.2 minutes and upload five minutes of HD home video in 31 seconds, according to Verizon. The fastest FiOS service now is 150Mbps downstream and 35Mbps upstream, with TV and voice, for $199.99 per month.

When it comes to national-scale broadband services, the 300Mbps service won't have any competition on the speed front. The large U.S. cable operators don't offer any services faster than about 100Mbps, and rival carrier AT&T, which doesn't build fiber all the way to homes with its competing U-Verse service, tops out at 24Mbps.

However, even the faster FiOS won't bring the U.S. to the forefront of global broadband. A survey of fiber service providers released last September by the Organization for Economic Development (OECD) showed operators offering 1Gbps speeds in Slovenia, Japan, Turkey and Sweden, and one in Norway advertising 400Mbps service.

Localized projects in the U.S. also are hitting the 1Gbps mark, or will when they go live. The most closely watched example is Google's fiber buildout in the twin cities of Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas. The company said last month that it had laid 100 miles of fiber there, though it hasn't given a firm commercial launch date or pricing for its service. Google's experimental fiber network in a residential area at Stanford University is already live with 1Gbps service.

Last week, a coalition of universities said it had raised $200 million to build gigabit-speed fiber networks in six university communities. Small ISPs, including Sonic.net in California and GWI in Maine, also have built local gigabit networks.

FiOS runs over a fiber network that goes all the way to subscribers' homes and businesses, avoiding the lower capacity of copper wires. The theoretical capacity of a strand of fiber is almost limitless, and Verizon has gradually increased the speeds it offers. The 300Mbps Internet service will be available by itself or as part of bundles with TV and voice.

 

Also next month, Verizon will increase the upstream speeds on two of its tiers, introduce a new 75Mbps/35Mbps tier, and stop offering its 35Mbps and 25Mbps tiers for new subscribers. Verizon's 50Mbps plan will go from 20Mbps to 25Mbps upstream, and its 150Mbps service will go from 35Mbps to 65Mbps upstream.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227587/Verizon_boosting_FiOS_top_speed_to_300Mbps

[MrTorso]

I would love to have FIOS. It is all around me except for my town. So annoying.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

If they priced it closer to cable I'd switch, but it's almost twice as expensive on every speed tier.  Since cable here has pretty consistent speed all the time the only advantage for me is the upload is way faster, but I don't really need that so it's not worth the extra cost.  I rarely go close to the Comcast cap so there's another reason it's not worth it.

[Henry88]

http://qwest.centurylink.com/legal/highspeedinternetsubscriberagreement/files/HSI_Subscriber_Agreement_ENG_v34_080811.pdf

Drop down to page 16 section 17 "Arbitration"

[Henry88]

Recently, many U.S. Internet service providers have fallen in line with their international counterparts in capping monthly residential broadband usage. A new study by a Georgia Tech researcher, conducted during an internship at Microsoft Research, shows such pricing models trigger uneasy user experiences that could be mitigated by better tools to monitor data usage through their home networks.

Home users, the study found, typically manage their capped broadband access against three uncertainties -- invisible balances, mysterious processes and multiple users -- and these uncertainties have predictable impacts on household Internet use and can force difficult choices on users. Given the undeniable trend in both Internet norms (such as cloud-based applications) and home-entertainment delivery toward greater broadband requirements, the study seeks to create awareness and empathy among designers and researchers about the experience of Internet use under bandwidth caps.

Marshini Chetty, a postdoctoral researcher in Georgia Tech's School of Interactive Computing, interviewed 12 households in South Africa, a country in which broadband caps were universal until February 2010. Typically, the caps set by South African ISPs are severe with some plans only offering 1 GB of data per month. At the time of the study, the caps ranged up to 9GB of data, far lower than the 150GB-250GB caps set by U.S. providers.

What Chetty and her collaborators found were coping mechanisms built into South Africans' daily lives in order to manage their online activities under the caps. For example, some would routinely "top up" their accounts (pay additional fees for incremental cap increases), while others would visit family members to use their Internet accounts, or switch from desktop connectivity to smartphones. And with few (if any) ways for customers to monitor Internet usage throughout the month, their access often would be cut off in the middle of performing an online activity.

"People's behavior does change when limits are placed on Internet access -- just like we've seen happen in the smartphone market -- and many complain about usage-based billing, but no one has really studied the effects it has on consumer activity," said Chetty, who earned her Ph.D. in computer science from Georgia Tech in 2011. "We would also hear about people 'saving' bandwidth all month and then binge downloading toward the end of their billing period."

"Mysterious processes" refers to customers' inability to determine which applications are eating up their bandwidth, ranging from being unaware that streaming video or downloading songs consumes much more data than normal web browsing, to not knowing that many background applications (such as automatic software updates) count against the monthly cap.

"We were surprised to learn that many of the households we studied chose not to perform regular software updates in order to manage their cap," Chetty said. "This activity can be benign for some applications, inadvisable for others and downright dangerous in certain cases. For example, not installing security patches on your system can leave you vulnerable to viruses and other sorts of cyber attacks." Chetty suggested that the frequency of such risky behaviors among the broader population of metered/capped Internet users should be assessed via follow-up scientifically representative surveys.

Finally, in households with multiple Internet users, it can be difficult for the heads of the household to manage overall activity when they are not fully aware of each member's Internet use. As with other consumable resources in a household, from milk to hot water, the apportionment of "fair" amounts of bandwidth reflects family practices and requires a fair bit of nuance, varying by family style and composition.

"As ISPs move more toward usage-based pricing, we need to keep in mind the reactive behaviors that consumers adopt and the consequences of those behaviors. Because when you have broadband caps, you will use the Internet differently," Chetty said. "This study was performed in South Africa, and although the caps are higher in the United States, there are still instances where people are hitting them. So if you're going to have caps, you should empathize with your users and offer ways for customers to see how their data are being used and who is using them." More tools are becoming available, from ISPs, within operating systems and from third parties; but this is one of the first academic studies that systematically reveals why there is a demand for such tools, and why they are important to users.

The study's findings are summarized in the paper, "'You're Capped!' Understanding the Effects of Bandwidth Caps on Broadband Use in the Home," which Chetty will present on May 10 at the 2012 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2012), being held May 5-10 in Austin, Texas. Chetty's coauthors include Beki Grinter, professor in the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing, and Richard Banks, A.J. Bernheim Brush and Jonathan Donner from Microsoft Research. The paper is one of nine Georgia Tech entries in the main program of CHI 2012.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120507113748.htm

[gavind]

Recently, many U.S. Internet service providers have fallen in line with their international counterparts in capping monthly residential broadband usage. A new study by a Georgia Tech researcher, conducted during an internship at Microsoft Research, shows such pricing models trigger uneasy user experiences that could be mitigated by better tools to monitor data usage through their home networks.

Home users, the study found, typically manage their capped broadband access against three uncertainties -- invisible balances, mysterious processes and multiple users -- and these uncertainties have predictable impacts on household Internet use and can force difficult choices on users. Given the undeniable trend in both Internet norms (such as cloud-based applications) and home-entertainment delivery toward greater broadband requirements, the study seeks to create awareness and empathy among designers and researchers about the experience of Internet use under bandwidth caps.

Marshini Chetty, a postdoctoral researcher in Georgia Tech's School of Interactive Computing, interviewed 12 households in South Africa, a country in which broadband caps were universal until February 2010. Typically, the caps set by South African ISPs are severe with some plans only offering 1 GB of data per month. At the time of the study, the caps ranged up to 9GB of data, far lower than the 150GB-250GB caps set by U.S. providers.

What Chetty and her collaborators found were coping mechanisms built into South Africans' daily lives in order to manage their online activities under the caps. For example, some would routinely "top up" their accounts (pay additional fees for incremental cap increases), while others would visit family members to use their Internet accounts, or switch from desktop connectivity to smartphones. And with few (if any) ways for customers to monitor Internet usage throughout the month, their access often would be cut off in the middle of performing an online activity.

"People's behavior does change when limits are placed on Internet access -- just like we've seen happen in the smartphone market -- and many complain about usage-based billing, but no one has really studied the effects it has on consumer activity," said Chetty, who earned her Ph.D. in computer science from Georgia Tech in 2011. "We would also hear about people 'saving' bandwidth all month and then binge downloading toward the end of their billing period."

"Mysterious processes" refers to customers' inability to determine which applications are eating up their bandwidth, ranging from being unaware that streaming video or downloading songs consumes much more data than normal web browsing, to not knowing that many background applications (such as automatic software updates) count against the monthly cap.

"We were surprised to learn that many of the households we studied chose not to perform regular software updates in order to manage their cap," Chetty said. "This activity can be benign for some applications, inadvisable for others and downright dangerous in certain cases. For example, not installing security patches on your system can leave you vulnerable to viruses and other sorts of cyber attacks." Chetty suggested that the frequency of such risky behaviors among the broader population of metered/capped Internet users should be assessed via follow-up scientifically representative surveys.

Finally, in households with multiple Internet users, it can be difficult for the heads of the household to manage overall activity when they are not fully aware of each member's Internet use. As with other consumable resources in a household, from milk to hot water, the apportionment of "fair" amounts of bandwidth reflects family practices and requires a fair bit of nuance, varying by family style and composition.

"As ISPs move more toward usage-based pricing, we need to keep in mind the reactive behaviors that consumers adopt and the consequences of those behaviors. Because when you have broadband caps, you will use the Internet differently," Chetty said. "This study was performed in South Africa, and although the caps are higher in the United States, there are still instances where people are hitting them. So if you're going to have caps, you should empathize with your users and offer ways for customers to see how their data are being used and who is using them." More tools are becoming available, from ISPs, within operating systems and from third parties; but this is one of the first academic studies that systematically reveals why there is a demand for such tools, and why they are important to users.

The study's findings are summarized in the paper, "'You're Capped!' Understanding the Effects of Bandwidth Caps on Broadband Use in the Home," which Chetty will present on May 10 at the 2012 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2012), being held May 5-10 in Austin, Texas. Chetty's coauthors include Beki Grinter, professor in the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing, and Richard Banks, A.J. Bernheim Brush and Jonathan Donner from Microsoft Research. The paper is one of nine Georgia Tech entries in the main program of CHI 2012.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120507113748.htm

" Bandwidth Caps Create User Uncertainty" This is broadband gone 100 times difficult. Movies will be so much hard to download 

[Henry88]

Technology permeates the modern lifestyle, but large swaths of people are missing out on the revolution, even in developed nations like the U.S.

Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt pointed out over two-thirds of the world's population do not have Internet access, building on an earlier comment he made at the Mobile World Congress earlier this year. At a conference in Israel, Schmidt explored the limits to the current technological landscape.

"The World Wide Web has yet to live up to its name," Schmidt said, calling for outreach to communities lacking access to the Internet.

Who are these people Schmidt worries will be left behind? In the U.S., the southern states of Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee have broadband subscription rates far lower than the rest of the country, pointing to a lack of Internet access. In rural areas, 1 in 10 rural households have no broadband available, meaning the best they could get is archaic and unreliable dial-up Internet.

The lagging rates of access correlate to low median incomes, suggesting a relationship between low-income households and limited Internet connections. This also means school districts lower on the socio-economic ladder suffer from poor access as well.

The Hechinger Report, which focuses on education news, highlighted how some rural U.S. schools are coping with the Internet deficiency, trying to wire their facilities so students can learn about vital technologies on campus despite their potential lack of access at home.

While some schools are so tuned in to technology they are pushing the limits by experimenting with high-tech tracking systems, others struggle to find funds for basic computers, a problem the tech industry is stepping up to discuss.

For example, Apple's initiative to get iPads into schools may help level the growing divide. The Cupertino company partnered with educational textbook purveyor McGraw Hill to lower the prices of school materials, which may open more doors for rural schools strapped for cash and looking for more affordable tech solutions.

Still, even with Apple's plans to digitize education for the masses and President Obama's educational tech initiative pushing digital textbooks, there's a lot of work to do to bring large pockets of the U.S. up to speed.

The U.S. is ranked 12th for Internet access, possibly because of the lack of competition -- 96 percent of Americans have access to two or less providers. Moreover, high-speed Internet access is more expensive than it needs to be, as Americans pay twice as much per megabyte than places like South Korea and Japan, which have made more concerted efforts to get their countries up to speed.

Globally, many developing countries have even more extreme Internet limits. USAID described the situation in Central America and the Caribbean, where access hovers at 30 percent. Obama announced a program called Broadband of the Partnership Americas, which focuses on improving Internet capabilities in Latin America, but the situation there is indicative of access levels across the globe in rural, developing nations.

In both developing nations and developed nations like the U.S. with connectivity hurdles, this lack of access continues to bog down populations who need technology to bolster their economies and educational opportunities.

Schmidt pointed out a very real problem, and the next step is beefing up Internet connectivity both domestically and globally, which will require serious efforts from governments, corporations and citizens alike. Governments may choose to introduce initiatives, but they will need the cooperation of broadband distributors, especially in the U.S., where prices are far above what they need to be.

Schmidt noted that the Internet will not magically fix the socioeconomic injustice, but widespread access is necessary to level the playing field. Internet access may not be synonymous with opportunity, but it is an integral part of the modern economy, and people without it are likely to stay at a disadvantage.

Unless changes are made, this problem may exacerbate the widening income gap in the U.S. by perpetuating poverty, since limited Internet access translates into limited educational and employment opportunities.

http://www.mobiledia.com/news/154529.html

[Smith Dr John Smith]

Technology permeates the modern lifestyle, but large swaths of people are missing out on the revolution, even in developed nations like the U.S.

Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt pointed out over two-thirds of the world's population do not have Internet access, building on an earlier comment he made at the Mobile World Congress earlier this year. At a conference in Israel, Schmidt explored the limits to the current technological landscape.

"The World Wide Web has yet to live up to its name," Schmidt said, calling for outreach to communities lacking access to the Internet.

Who are these people Schmidt worries will be left behind? In the U.S., the southern states of Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee have broadband subscription rates far lower than the rest of the country, pointing to a lack of Internet access. In rural areas, 1 in 10 rural households have no broadband available, meaning the best they could get is archaic and unreliable dial-up Internet.

The lagging rates of access correlate to low median incomes, suggesting a relationship between low-income households and limited Internet connections. This also means school districts lower on the socio-economic ladder suffer from poor access as well.

The Hechinger Report, which focuses on education news, highlighted how some rural U.S. schools are coping with the Internet deficiency, trying to wire their facilities so students can learn about vital technologies on campus despite their potential lack of access at home.

While some schools are so tuned in to technology they are pushing the limits by experimenting with high-tech tracking systems, others struggle to find funds for basic computers, a problem the tech industry is stepping up to discuss.

For example, Apple's initiative to get iPads into schools may help level the growing divide. The Cupertino company partnered with educational textbook purveyor McGraw Hill to lower the prices of school materials, which may open more doors for rural schools strapped for cash and looking for more affordable tech solutions.

Still, even with Apple's plans to digitize education for the masses and President Obama's educational tech initiative pushing digital textbooks, there's a lot of work to do to bring large pockets of the U.S. up to speed.

The U.S. is ranked 12th for Internet access, possibly because of the lack of competition -- 96 percent of Americans have access to two or less providers. Moreover, high-speed Internet access is more expensive than it needs to be, as Americans pay twice as much per megabyte than places like South Korea and Japan, which have made more concerted efforts to get their countries up to speed.

Globally, many developing countries have even more extreme Internet limits. USAID described the situation in Central America and the Caribbean, where access hovers at 30 percent. Obama announced a program called Broadband of the Partnership Americas, which focuses on improving Internet capabilities in Latin America, but the situation there is indicative of access levels across the globe in rural, developing nations.

In both developing nations and developed nations like the U.S. with connectivity hurdles, this lack of access continues to bog down populations who need technology to bolster their economies and educational opportunities.

Schmidt pointed out a very real problem, and the next step is beefing up Internet connectivity both domestically and globally, which will require serious efforts from governments, corporations and citizens alike. Governments may choose to introduce initiatives, but they will need the cooperation of broadband distributors, especially in the U.S., where prices are far above what they need to be.

Schmidt noted that the Internet will not magically fix the socioeconomic injustice, but widespread access is necessary to level the playing field. Internet access may not be synonymous with opportunity, but it is an integral part of the modern economy, and people without it are likely to stay at a disadvantage.

Unless changes are made, this problem may exacerbate the widening income gap in the U.S. by perpetuating poverty, since limited Internet access translates into limited educational and employment opportunities.

http://www.mobiledia.com/news/154529.html

So after ten years some one finally noticed that people like me can't get highspeed .  All I can say is that it is about time.

[Henry88]

this is so neat

http://www.carlsonwireless.com/products/ruralconnect-ip.html